Posted by:
Greg Lance – Watkins
Greg_L-W

it seems Ukip’s collapse is now inevitable after their abject failure in the Stoke by-election despite squandering £99,000 on a hopeless, hapless and risible candidate – that Ukip’s leaders sequentially resigned and their candidates dropped out, with the loss of their primary backer and donations in collapse with no credible leader and their only MP, the turncoat Tory, defecting and Mark Reckless, Douglas Carswell and a slew of councillors defecting or standing down we now see Ukip’s contention for seats in the upcoming May election in freefall.

Ukip’s challenge for seats in May is down below half the numbers they contested last time, in fact their challenge has fallen behind even that of the implausible, near leaderless and largely discreditted Greens!

In real terms with Ukip ever more a political joke it is time for them to try to take the high ground in the pretence that they delivered BreXit, a contention which does not sustain much scruting, their claim would be less challenged if they withdrew from politics having largely failed in domestic policies before they become yet more of a laughing stock, befouling what little credibility they can sustain amongst the gullible.

Of the some 19,000 electable offices in British politics at their high water mark under Nigel Farage’s control his party fell short of 200 office holders 150 of whom were councillors at various levels and one turncoat Tory was elected as an MP

bereft of Arron Banks’ ego and dubious funding and with the one man band leadership

dismantled

It seems likely that Ukip could well end up with around 50 council seats zero MPs and around half the MEPs they originally had elected after the May elections, with even Tim Farron’s risible little clique gaining greater credibility than Ukip.

Ukip Overtaken By Green Party In Number Of Council Seats Contested, New Figures Show

Further evidence of the party’s slow demise?

UKIP will contest fewer council seats than the Green Party in the coming May elections in England, new figures have revealed.

In what critics will see as fresh evidence of the ‘post-Brexit vote blues’ for Paul Nuttall’s party, it will stand candidates in just 48% of wards, a dramatic slump from the 73% it fought just four years ago.

The Greens, in contrast, will put up candidates in 53.9% of wards, up significantly on their 37% showing in 2013.

Across all seats up for grabs in the County Councils, unitary authorities and Doncaster, the Tories and Labour are roughly at the same level of candidates this time around, final nomination papers have revealed.

The Conservatives will contest 96% of all seats, and Labour will contest 91%.

The Lib Dems – who last fought the elections while in coalition with the Tories at Westminster – have edged up from 74% to 80% in candidate selection.

Four years ago, Nigel Farage led UKIP to its best ever results in English council elections, winning 150 seats and a quarter of the votes in England and Wales.

Related articles

The party has been embroiled in several chaotic leadership contests since Nigel Farage decided to step down last summer.

They lost their only MP Douglas Carswell after he became an independent in the past week, and on Thursday another former Tory MP Mark Reckless announced he was switching his support to the Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly.

Party leader Nuttall came a poor second in the Stoke-on-Trent by-election, following a series of controversies over misleading claims on his website.

PA Wire/PA Images

Green Party co-leaders Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas

The party also dipped below double figures in national opinion polls and its big donor Arron Banks has announced he is funding a new campaign group, Patriotic Alliance.

After Brexit in 2019, the party will lose all its MEPs, like the other parties, and critics claim it will effectively have little reason to exist at all.

The Green Party, in contrast, has an MP in Caroline Lucas and has seen a surge in membership to 46,000 since 2015. It is due to launch its own council election campaign on Friday.

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, told HuffPost UK: “This is a pivotal moment and it’s time to pick a side.

“The Green Party is proud to be standing a record number of candidates in the local elections. From standing up for social care to standing against the Government’s extreme Brexit, Greens make a real difference when they are elected.

“It is no wonder we are already taking seats of UKIP. Vote Green to wipe the smile off UKIP’s face and send the message that Britain is bigger and better than the narrow country envisioned by Nuttall and his withering gang.”

It has 3 MEPs, one peer, six MSPs in Scotland, two London Assembly Members, two Assembly Members in Northern Ireland and 165 councillors.

They are also involved in balance of power governance arrangements on Stroud and Worcester councils.

The Greens came third twice in London elections in 2016 and 2012, as well as being the most popular party on second preferences in the London Mayoral elections last year.

The Greens have complained consistently that Farage and UKIP are given too much airtime on TV shows such as Question Time, given their relative lack of representation.

Ukip’s Vanishing Presence Is Very Visible, with Nigel Farage more jaded, more shouty and more visibly isolated.

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Hi,

Rod Lidell, in his recent article, claims that the ‘establishment’ is working to denigrate Nigel Farage in an effort to ‘make him go away’, seemingly overlooking the fact that most serious EUroRealist seeking to Leave_The_EU also hope that Nigel Farage will step aside, as he is clearly more of a hinderance than a help in seeking a vote to Leave_The_EU in any upcoming Referendum.

It is clear that despite ‘claiming’ that they wish to Leave_The_EU Ukip has not only done little to achieve their ‘claimed’ aim, in fact nothing beyond repeating their mantras and insulting people in the EU, they still, after 22 years, have absolutely zero ethical, workable, costed EU policy offering a strategy to achieve independence nor for survival having left the EU.

How Ukip became the incredible disappearing party

The establishment would just like Nigel Farage to go away — and they’re working on getting their wish

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English, the London media turned paroxysms of outrage and the Ukip vote dutifully went up a little. Such comments find a bit of resonance, away from the bien pensants — but the media has now grasped this point, so you won’t be reading that sort of thing any more.

Indeed, you won’t be reading much about Farage, unless he is caught having sex with a goat (preferably a European goat, a federalist Brussels goat) or with his hand in some till. The media has gathered too that it is Farage and Farage alone who attracts the voters, and so while he is guaranteed to give good copy, this luxury will be put on hold until all the votes are counted.

The broadcast media has already stuck the boot in, twice, in a way which would be inconceivable with any party to the left of Ukip. First there was Channel 4’s hilarious drama-doc about what would happen if Ukip won a majority in May (which of course it cannot conceivably do). Financial ruin, riots in the street and half of Europe being invaded by Isis was Channel 4’s considered and intelligent analysis of any possible Ukip victory. The broadcaster’s loathing of Ukip bled through in every scene. There was of course no follow-up — an investigation as to what might happen if the staggeringly witless, almost mentally infirm, Greens won a majority. Presumably because Channel 4 think that it would be absolutely marvellous if they did so.

Just as even-handed was the BBC’s hour of gleeful spite, Meet the Ukippers, which revealed that some party members are thick and others doolally, and therefore quite unlike ordinary members of any other political party. I look forward to Meet the Labourites — a documentary set in a certain east London constituency — perhaps while they are stuffing the ballot boxes, intimidating voters and carrying out the occasional bit of ad hoc female genital mutilation.

Then there are the debates, the election debates. Again, Ukip has been carved up. There will be one debate between seven party leaders, which nobody will watch because such a format is close to meaningless. Nobody south of Gretna Green wants to hear the views of that bizarrely arrogant munchkin Nicola Sturgeon. Nobody east of Monmouth has heard of, or has any interest in, Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru. I suppose it will be good for a laugh to watch Natalie Bennett, of the Green party, gabbling antipodean inanities and failing to remember even the important bits of her party’s manifesto commitments. In fact the Greens are likely to have no MPs whatsoever after the next election — even the country’s most achingly hip electorate, right-on Brighton, has had enough of them. But the Prime Minister does not have to take part in debates (and with the exception of Gordon Brown, all prime ministers previously have refused to take part in any at all), and feels himself entitled to call the shots. It is the connivance of the media that grates a little, frankly.

I don’t blame David Cameron for attempting (successfully) to neutralise the biggest threat to his vote, although he may have slightly miscalculated. While it is true that over half of Ukip’s vote comes from ‘Conservative voters’, a substantial proportion of those voters were only Conservative at the last election, and had previously voted Labour or Lib Dem. In other words, it is not the regular Tory voters who Farage has won over, but the distrait floaters. My suspicion is that Ukip has taken just about all that it can from the Tory vote and that its most profitable target now is northern Labour voters. That is why Ukip held its last party conference in Doncaster. In the north it tends to be Labour voters, and in particular older Labour voters, who switch to Ukip and therefore the mantra — ‘Go to bed with Nigel, wake up with Ed’ — does not really hold north of the Severn-Trent divide. There are plenty of seats in the north where a few months ago Ukip might have been odds on to win — and even if they didn’t win, would damage the Labour vote sufficiently to let the Tories sneak through on the blind side.

But, as I say, that was a few months ago. The Ukip vote has contracted and contracted. The Liberal Democrats, for whom rumours of a wipeout were hugely overstated, will end up with about 25 seats from roughly half the Ukip vote, which hovers at about 14 per cent, the consequence of a quite deliberate policy to starve them of publicity unless it is very, very bad publicity. And of course, this approach works. At the time of that Ukip conference in autumn 2014 — and the subsequent by-election wins for Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless — it was at least possible to imagine the party gaining a dozen MPs, and maybe more. Not now. Party insiders reckon between one and four is a more feasible prediction, and my guess is just two — Carswell and Farage himself. And even that number might diminish during an election campaign in which Ukip is rendered invisible and voters see the spectre of Ed Miliband hovering before the door of No. 10.

The LibLabUkipCon’s failure to Plan For Liberty as they grow ever more alike The Conservatives, Labour & Liberal Democrats seem to share a Rizla whilst Ukip is barely a fag paper away!

“As for Ukip”, says David Cameron, writing for the Daily Telegraph, “all they can deliver is Ed Miliband into Downing Street“. He goes on to say:

A vote for Ukip is a vote to prop up a failing Labour government – a government that would refuse to give people a referendum on Europe and that would take us back to the days of open-door immigration, an out-of-control welfare budget and a something-for-nothing society …

Then up pops an oft-repeated promise: Labour’s Human Rights Act would be scrapped, and thence for emphasis, Mr Cameron again tells us that: “an in-out referendum on Europe [will be] delivered”.

Needless to say, there is no reason to trust that Mr Cameron will keep his promises. But then trust is not an issue. Our best judgement is that, if he again reneged on a promise of a referendum, the Conservative party would rebel, and he would quickly be deposed as a leader.

Furthermore, come the 2020 general election, with no referendum having been delivered, the Conservative Party would be unelectable. Mr Cameron would have wiped out any chance of a further Conservative government for the foreseeable future.

But then, if you want to quibble, is Mr Cameron’s statement any more or less credible than this from Mr Farage?

Ukip is no longer seen as the “protest vote”, but rather as an opportunity to look outside the Westminster bubble for real solutions, devised by real people, with real life experience. We will fight the upcoming elections believing that our potential is still underestimated, and that the balance of power is within our grasp.

If you believe that, frankly, you will believe anything. But, of the two, I’m more prepared to take Mr Cameron at his word – not because I trust him, but because he’s boxed himself into a corner, and has no realistic option other than to deliver, if he again becomes prime minister after this year’s general election.

That notwithstanding, sooner of later, we are going to have a referendum. And the better prepared we are to fight the campaign, the better our chances are of winning it. Thus, whether or not Mr Cameron delivers on his promise, we should still be preparing for a referendum campaign.

And, with even greater emphasis, that’s what we’re going to be doing on this blog.

perhaps lie is a little strong, as Enoch Powell made clear in his speech in the HoC, the EU was telling the truth but it’s sales force, in the form of paid hirelings like MEPs, MPs, broadcasters & Civil Servants were all too willing to obfuscate the truth with spin.

Currently we have Cameron promising a referendum IF the Tories are returned with a majority and offering to resign IF he then does not deliver a referendum – an easy out from his promise, based not on lies but on obfuscation.

I note that there seems no clarity of such a promise from any other political leader of consequence and Cameron’s promise seems in isolation in that none of the front runners for his job should he stumble and fall has either endorsed his promise or promised an EU IN/OUT Referendum of any clarity. In fact none of the front runners for the governance of OUR Country would seem to wish to hold a fair, informed and balanced referendum – each feeding the mill with grit rather than grain!

Alternatively we have the spin and obfuscation of Ukip who after 22 years of ‘claiming’ to wish to Leave_The_EU are milking the tax payers for all they are worth through the EU bribe system and delivering nothing – not even aresponsible, honourable, clear EU eXit & survival strategy, in fact no strategy or plan whatsoever after 22 years!

Ukip’s devotion to populism without proper policy is so well a trodden path it is risible. Consider Adolf Hitler, Oswald Moseley, both of whom sought to blame outsiders and to thus sweep the gutters of politics choosing unsavoury allies and ill informed supporters over responsible researched policies of substance and gravitas and they like Nigel Farage were also pronounced man of the year, in 1938 & 1934 respectively.

That The SNP, Plaid and the Greens are trolling the same pool dependent on ignorance for their support and transient achievements casts a sad light on the body politic, where Ukip’s good fortune has been enhanced by gathering in the support of BNP members, even their deposed leader Nick Griffin, and supporters now they have collapsed leaving Ukip as the most clearly racist party left with which to protest. Much as Hitler’s early battle was with the Communist Party in Bavaria, a battle he won by denouncing the Jews, Gypsies and disabled – just as Ukip do regarding Romanians, Bulgarians, Roma and other immigrants!

The difficulty faced by those of us seeking to Leave_The_EU is that it is an immensely complex process and FUD can be all too easily used by those who have incrementally forced upon us the EU scam, with salami slicing of our fundamental human right of self determination and its obscene costs and down side risks.

The EU has woven a complex quilt of regulation, by the use of a massive unelected bureaucracy that includes the Civil Servants of all its vassal states aided by their police, politicians and much of their military whilst the tax payers have been left unrepresented and poorly, led mostly by opportunists unwilling to put in the hard slog of research and fine tuning as they expend their energy and our cash seeking selection and election so as to feed on the gravy train they claim to reject!

Indubitably FleXcit offers a way forward, even perhaps the way forward, but already it extends to some 370 pages, well researched as it is and clearly striving for joined up thinking, will enough people read it. More importantly will enough members of the electorate understand it or will it continue to be run away from by the LibLabUkipCon herd mentality?

The LibLabUkipCon seem not to wish to lie but clearly they have no desire to tell the truth with clarity and integrity or we would have left the outmoded, obfuscating, self serving bureaucrats of the un democratic EU long ago, even assuming we had been duped into its clutches originally, as we unarguably were; then as now based on spin, unbalanced funding, corrupt publicity and FUD – little changes!

We have a long and arduous road ahead to repatriate our democracy and salvage our right to self determination and justice. Without education of the electorate in at least some of the details of FleXcit our aim of EU eXit is likely to fail, as the EUroPhiles have no need to lie merely to obfuscate and employ FUD to rattle the ill informed into the ballot box with a ‘stay in’ vote cast in fear and ignorance.

Ignorance that comes of never having had explained to them the clear benefits of Britain resuming its independent status as a Global trading nation, with a reputation of integrity and justice, though the latter has been much tarnished by what were indubitably lies that emanated from the likes of Edward Heath, Geoffrey Rippon and latterly the indisputable corruption of Blair & Brown’s 13 unlucky years of self enriching misgovernment and economic illiteracy.

Whenever the referendum comes, as it surely will, the hard work starts here and now and must be relentless if we are to have any hope of restoring our democracy in any meaningful terms.

How about starting out with the relatively simple task of explaining how the EU works by promoting Richard North’s excellent book ‘The Great Deception’; followeed by the simple fact that the EU makes very few laws, it merely rewrites the laws of The WTO, Codex, The WHO, The IMF, The UN and the like with the seal of approval and wording of The Enarcs and the imprimatur of the EU.

It will be long, it will be hard and it may well be bloody but we must work for freedom rather than be distracted by the obfuscation of the so called wars to grant freedom to many who as a majority wish to live by other standards be they Islam or the centralised dictator committees of Russia or The EU.

If we are ever again asked if we wish to be governed by a centralised foreign and very alien power and the choice is that or the open sea and restoration of our global trading role and spheres of influence in the Anglosphere and beyond clearly we should, as an island Nation of United Kingdoms choose the open sea with control of our own trade, our own laws and freedoms and our own borders.

Sadly one is forced to ponder whether Nigel farage has merely adopted the role of being yet another Judas Goat!

Ukip, an Analysis & Way Forward via The House of Commons & FleXcit with full documentation!

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Hi,

as it becomes ever clearer, to the informed, that Ukip has ever more deeply significant problems beyond the sexual dalliances of its leadership in continental bordellos and employing wives and mistresses, whether past present or future, the divorce of buffoons like Roger Helmer are of little significance – with whom and where they sleep is like them, an irrelevance.

Clearly their much claimed populist positioning and mobilising of a ‘people’s army’ has all the ring of truth of scoundrels such as General Jackson, General Lord Dunat and others in trying to pretend that Britain’s folly of engagement by the self serving degenerate fool Tony Blair and the low grades he gathered around him trying to claim Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was other than a route, in militarty, political, economic and humanitarian terms.

Clearly it is not just Ukip tyhat is bereft of leadership and sound judgement.

Ukip however is being implausible before the even for even the poorly informed!

You will note the jingo of mobilising a ‘peoples’ army’, which has clearly stalled as shown by the failure of their Police Crime Commissioner candidate in South Yorkshire to get out any kind of vote let alone mobilise those who have not engaged politically in the past scoring a mere 4.7% of the votes of the electorate, albeit a gain on last time when Jonatyhan Arnot had a mere 16,000 or so votes, this time their candidate picked up a little by the increase of turnout from 14.5% to 14.9% and absorbing the votes of last time’s popular English Democrat candidate who did not stand this time.

Hardly mobilising a ‘peoples’ army’ though to be fair the winner with almost double the vote was the Labour candidate an Anglican priest teaching ethics at the local red brick Uni. with a meager 7.4% holding within a few hundred of the disgraced outgoing Labour incumbent; thus showing Ukip is not materially effecting Labour in their he\artlands.

Then much akin to the anti homosexual appearance of Roger Helmer’s comments and Ukip in general, particularly Nigel Farage and his close chum, at the time, Godfrey Bloom – as displayed by Nigel Farage openly denouncing Nikki Sinclaire, an openly declared homosexual subsequent to her gender reassignment, within hours of her being elected as one of his MEPs despite the fact that she went on to donate more of her own money to the Ukip cause in the following 4 montha than Farage himself has donated in 21 years!

Ukip saw a gap in the market – a new band wagon to jump on – and decided to try to increase their vote using the wide open goal and crowd from the now collapsed BNP looking for a new home by preaching a doctrine all too akin to the racist hate material published by their own MEP Gerard Batten to exploit the increase in mobility of people world wide resulting in a huge difficulty dealing with immigrants.

One of Gerard Batten’s odious racist Ukip pamphlets

Ukip were dubiously backed not only by a few police officers of dubious integrity and questionable awsociates but also by a cult of extremist so called self proclaimed ‘christians’!

The mask is slipping! Part of Ukip’s propaganda was to claim that Britain was awash with immigrants but when you study the figures you find that this just isn’t true when compared witjh other countries – not wishjing to let the facts get in the way of an opportunity to make a shoddy case Ukip blamed the EU for this, yet as you will see from the facts in the chart below the argument is unsound:

Just click on the charty for a larger version.

It is worth noting that Ukip champions the cause of leaving the EU, which is of course a sound policy, but to do so dishonestly is to cast their future to the wind!

Were Britain to Leave_The_EU it would not make a jot of difference to our immigrant levels and the fact they site Norway and Switzerland as exemplars shows how very ill informed and dishonest they are since both countries are not only outside of the EU but also have much higher levels of immigration than Britain.

To compound their folly Ukip suggest a role model of Australia as having a much better control of immigration yet where Britain currently has some 13% of our population who are immigrants Australia stands at 27%. Meanwhile although Ukip would seem to be deriving much support and attention from the opposition wing in America where interestingly it is shown to have nearly the identical immigration level to these United Kingdoms with 41M of its 313M peoples being immigrants, thus 13%!

Ukip’s dishonesty is increasingly being seen through, not to mention the3 vile nature of many in its leadership clique and its immediate claque.

One can expect Mark Reckless to be re-elected in the upcoming by election but for the life of me I see absolutely no precedent or track record of figures to show the protest vote stands any chance of seeing him hold his seat in the upcoming General Election – the turn of the wheel when irt comes to actual achievement in Ukip to date shows that Ukip has little hope of gaining MPs at a General Election.

One may well seek to make much of their coming second in several by elections but the difference between 2nd. and 1st. is the difference between success and failure and if they are unable to produce winners in by elections with everything in their favour it seems clear that their sole achievement in a General election will be to ensure Britain NEVER leaves the EU, by destroying what little hope we have of a Referendum and compounding the catastrophe by placing Labour in Downing Street to continue the destruction of Britain they have resol;utely achieved in every other moment of folly where they were elected!

Let us hope the public wake from their somnambulent loss of faith in democracy and return to voting rather than leaving the vote to those jumping on ill informed populist band wagons.

Some reassurance may be found that although Ukip lay claim to 40,000 members they should remember at a time when the eligible electorate was far smaller Baronet Sir Oswald Moseley built up to 50,000, largely pandering to a working-class hooligan strain exploited subsequently by John Tyndall’s National Front in the 1970s in Britain, the same grouping that Alex Salmond endeavoured to tap into in Scotland and Adolf Hitler had successfully exploited in Germany, yet in Britain as a whole Moseley spectacularly failed in electoral achievement as did Tyndall!

Clearly Ukip has failed in domestic elections to dateand without Tory turncoats and malcontents they would be as insignificant as their natural rivals in the English Defence League, Britain First, BNP, English Democrats, Greens and Monster Raving Loonies!

Ukip having spectacularly failed to come up with any plausible and costed serious policies in its 21 years, dismissing former efforts as soon as they are shown to be, to use their own leader’s description ‘drivel’ despite his having personally been in charge of policy inventing most of it ad lib to suit occasions and having personally signed off and commended their last manifesto; being only to happy to lay the blame at anyone’s door rather than shoulder the responsibility for his own ineptitude!

It looks all too likely that Nigel Farage will be squirming around in efforts to lay the blame for Ukip’s totally inaccurate immigrant policy at someone’s door unwilling to damage his income stream and career path by accepting responsibility for his actions!

In 21 years the one policy which Nigel Farage’s party has spectacularly failed to address is a responsible and honourable EU exit and survival strategy – a concept and policy document both far from populist in its required detail and obviously far beyond his or his party’s intellectual ability to produce to date – therefore I take the liberty of putting forward a suggestion that all who genuinely wish to Leave_The_EU amongst the ranks of those who have to date been duped into supporting Ukip consider adopting minded that the ONLY route to this is via referendum which can only be achieved by holding one’s nose and voting Conservative – how so ever one might vote in insignificant protest votes pending the General Election.

To that end and to help Ukip supporters understand the importance of a responsible and honourable EU exit and survival strategy I publish below an article from another blog.

Leaving The EU – 01-Jul-2013

Published yesterday by the House of Commons Library was a research paper on “leaving the EU”. The online introduction is here which offers a download facility for the entire 112-page document. For those who want to look at it without downloading, you can access it here.The paper is edited by Vaughne Miller and she tells us that the Treaty on European Union provides for a Member State to leave the EU, either on the basis of a negotiated withdrawal agreement or without one.

If the UK were to leave the EU following a referendum, Miller says, it is likely that the Government would negotiate an agreement with the EU, which would probably contain transitional arrangements as well as provide for the UK’s long-term future relations with the EU. There is no precedent for such an agreement, but it would in all likelihood come at the end of complex and lengthy negotiations.

The full impact of a UK withdrawal, she adds, is impossible to predict, but from an assessment of the current EU role in a range of policy areas, it is possible to identify issues and estimate some of the impacts of removing the EU role in these areas. The implications would be greater in areas such as agriculture, trade and employment than they would in, say, education or culture.

As to whether UK citizens would benefit from leaving the EU, Miller argues that this would depend on how the UK Government of the day filled the policy gaps left by withdrawal from the EU.

She argues that, in some areas, the environment, for example, where the UK is bound by other international agreements, much of the content of EU law would probably remain. In others, it might be expedient for the UK to retain the substance of EU law, or for the Government to remove EU obligations from UK statutes.

Much would depend, Miller concludes, on whether the UK sought to remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) and therefore continue to have access to the single market, or preferred to go it alone and negotiate bilateral agreements with the EU.

And such is the view of a senior researcher in the House of Commons Library. It is not the definitive word by any means, but it is a contribution to a complex subject, where much debate and clarification is needed. At least, it does explore the Article 50 issue, telling us that an EU-exit would not be straightforward and would involve complex and probably lengthy negotiations over the UK’s future relations with the EU.

In so doing, several of the more egregious myths are debunked. For instance, the decision to leave, we are told, does not need the endorsement or formal agreement of the other Member States. Withdrawal can happen, whether or not there is a withdrawal agreement, two years after the leaving State notifies the European Council of its intention to withdraw.

Nevertheless, we learn, the terms of Article 50 TEU imply an orderly, negotiated withdrawal, and it is clearly indicated that transitional provisions would have to be agreed, allowing EU law and obligations to continue to apply until all loose ends had been tied up. It would not be possible to withdraw immediately from several policy areas without causing enormous disruption.

In my view, such are the complications that completion of negotiations within a two-year period is unlikely, and we could see the UK – as well as the member states – looking for an extension, before a withdrawal agreement could be finalised, with any side treaties that might be needed.

For all its utility, though, the paper has some huge gaps. There is, by way of one example, virtually no recognition of the effect of globalisation of trade, and the expanding role of international standards-setting bodies which, via WTO, are largely displacing the EU as originators of trade regulation.

In this context, a paper that talks of harmonised rules on type approval of road vehicles, that does not mention UNECE and the World Forum on the Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations, must be considered severely lacking. There is much of the “little European” in the arguments adduced.

For the moment, though, the paper is probably ahead of the field, which means that many commentators will be struggling to catch up. It gets some attention from the advertising and merchandising conglomerate, the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, which offers a thin report, homing in on narrow FUD issues. One suspects its author lacks the intellectual framework with which to assess the paper properly.

But then, media interests have shown little ability to deal with the detailed issues attendant on our leaving the EU – and many of the commenters even less so. The House of Commons researchers are better equipped, although one has to say, not that much better. But their contributions do make a start to what is going to be a long haul.

The Treaty on European Union provides for a Member State to leave the EU, either on the basis of a negotiated withdrawal agreement or without one. If the UK were to leave the EU following a referendum, it is likely that the Government would negotiate an agreement with the EU, which would probably contain transitional arrangements as well as provide for the UK’s long-term future relations with the EU. There is no precedent for such an agreement, but it would in all likelihood come at the end of complex and lengthy negotiations.

The full impact of a UK withdrawal is impossible to predict, but from an assessment of the current EU role in a range of policy areas, it is possible to identify issues and estimate some of the impacts of removing the EU role in these areas. The implications would be greater in areas such as agriculture, trade and employment than they would in, say, education or culture.

As to whether UK citizens would benefit from leaving the EU, this would depend on how the UK Government of the day filled the policy gaps left by withdrawal from the EU. In some areas, the environment, for example, where the UK is bound by other international agreements, much of the content of EU law would probably remain. In others, it might be expedient for the UK to retain the substance of EU law, or for the Government to remove EU obligations from UK statutes.

Much would depend on whether the UK sought to remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) and therefore continue to have access to the single market, or preferred to go it alone and negotiate bilateral agreements with the EU.

You may find the debate on You Tube interesting but I have a feeling UKIPMedia will probably reintroduce censorship to control and weed out facts and opinions about UKIP they wish to suppress!

A strange concept of being Libertarian when they use draconian censorship and institutionalised corruption to bully and lie, defame and abuse those who publish facts about them – We havve the very recent provenance of lies and dishonesty by UKIP’s leadership to suppress the truth.

We also have the desperate attempts of their sock puppets to defame and distort to obvfuscate the fact that UKIP are clearly unfit for purpose.

UKIP’s sock puppets have consistently lied and distorted in the most cowardly manner, being unable to hold an adult conversation to defend their vile behaviour – including support for extremist racism, anti Islamism, anti homosexuality and advocacy of violence as a political weapon!

We even note that UKIP supporters condone theft and abuse of the public purse and fraudulent use of tax payers’ money IF it is to support their views yet make a huge issue of similar behaviour when money is stolen to support the views of others!

The hypocracy of UKIP policy is staggering but we do at least now KNOW that it is official UKIP policy to lie to the media, lie to the electorate, lie to colleagues, lie to UKIP committees, lie to members and lie about both events and people to keep them on the gravy train to continue to enrich themselves from the public purse!

Do note that one of their low lifes even stooped to the level of lifting the words of someone else and dishonestly attributing them to me to try to defend UKIP and even quote the clearly corrupt and self serving lies of David Icke trying to dishonestly imply I was at one moment never in the army and never at Sandhurst and in the next that I was thrown out of the army (Sandhurst) at the age of about 12!!!

UKIP are clearly desperate to hide the truth about their scams and their squalid little clique and its parasitic claque of wannabes!

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It is a pity there isn’t a single political party seeking to LEAVE-THE-EU which is clearly the view of the majority in Britain. Yes a few Independents seek this position but short of voting for the squabbling and corrupt extremist minority groups The BNP or UKIP there is no representation.

UKIP was at one time a great hope but as they say ‘Power corrupts’ and just look at their sordid self serving track record of fraud, corruption, back stabbing, cyber stalking, bullying, abuse, lies and prison!

I wonder if Caroline Lucas, without her dishonest and unsustainable band wagon of Warmist propaganda and the seeming abuse of her EU status and expenses for publicity would have been elected to ANYTHING more exalted than the parish knitting circle!